The Bad Year . . . Or Two

So I've mentioned in various places that I lost a lot of time from keeping up with both this blog, and my self-imposed duties at my Ask A Lawyer blog. As I sort of explained in May 2007, I lost my dad in November 2006. He and my mom were married for 47 years, and, as you might expect, she did not handle his passing very well.

There was a year there, from about March 2007 to about January 2008 where she really needed a lot of hand-holding and guidance and I, being the oldest (and geographically the closest) was the obvious choice to do the guiding and hand-holding (well, at least the bulk of it.) Well, she took ill in March 2008, and began a slow spiral downward, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I'm pretty sure she just gave up on life; she just didn't want to go on without my dad. She died on 8/8/08.

In this same time frame, my wife and I split, in November 2007. My choice, for various reasons. So, during the same time I'm holding my mother's hand through life, I'm divvying up property with my wife, and, at the same time, trying to make this . . . . transitional family unit, for lack of a better term, as pain-free as possible for my kids. (My soon-to-be-ex and I have actually been very successful in that regard because, if nothing else, we both put the kids first.)

So anyway, there, in three paragraphs, is the nutshell version of where I've been and what I've been doing.

Yeah, I know. You want to details. Well, I'm not so good on details. I guess if you've read this far, you probably want to know more, but I'm not so good at "opening up," which is probably a bad thing when running a blog like this. I mean, this generation (listen to me, sounding like my old man) is all about openness, and having no secrets, and sharing feelings, and blah-de-blah. Yeah, well, I'm not so good at that. Snarky reviews. Sure. Sarcastic observations. Check. Analytical essays. That I can do. Opening up in an on-line diary? Not so much.

But, who knows? Maybe in time, I'll feel compelled to provide more detail. Let's see what happens.